COSTA MESA : New Device Helps Save Life of Man

Murray Brown is lucky to be alive.

The Costa Mesa man came home from Nevada on Wednesday night after surviving a near-drowning. Had it not been for extraordinary luck and medical technology, he would have died.

It was a cold and rainy night in Las Vegas on Jan. 18 when Brown’s Jeep skidded into a freezing flood-control channel. Brown was submerged in water for more than 20 minutes while rescue workers struggled to free him from his vehicle. By the time he was taken to a hospital, his body temperature had dropped to 86 degrees and he had no signs of neurological activity.

Brown was taken to University Medical Center, where a staff doctor’s newly invented blood-warming machine saved Brown from severe hypothermia--and a sure death.

The machine, devised by trauma specialist Larry Gentilello, had been tested on animals but never on a person.

Except for nerve damage to his hands--the aftereffects of frostbite--Brown has recovered from the accident. “I shouldn’t even be here, but I’m glad I am,” said Brown, who celebrated his 27th birthday while in the hospital Monday. “I was bubbling when we drove up to the house.

“It still doesn’t feel real to me. Did I actually go through that?”

Although Brown believes that the blood-warming machine was “greatly beneficial” in saving his life, he largely attributes his miraculous recovery to higher powers. “I think God had the biggest role,” he said.

The machine continuously drains, heats and recycles the blood of a hypothermia victim, Gentilello explained. “Our experience in the past with victims as critical as Murray has been that you call the family and give them bad news, with no room for hope,” he said. “Murray has a very warm, close-knit family. To see them go through pain and grief, and then to turn that around and give him a new lease on life was a very rewarding experience.”

Brown, the youngest child and only son in a family of eight, is now basking in the family’s delight at having him home.

“When I first saw him after the accident, I said my goodbys,” recalled his father, Richard Brown, who stayed at his son’s side at the hospital throughout the past month. “I mourned him for a week until his condition improved. My wife tells me I’m a pessimist.”

Yvette Brown, on the other hand, refused to believe that her son would die. “I prayed for 100% recovery, and that’s what we almost have,” she said.

If he does not regain full use of his hands, Brown will have to find another profession: “I’m a craftsman; I install ceramic tile. I depend on my hands to make a living,” said Brown, who is single and lives with his parents.

“Now,” he joked, “I may have to go back to school and learn to use my brain to make money.”